Do Pro-Women Groups on Campus Discriminate Against Men?Education Department investigates scholarships, networking for women at Yale, USC
By Melissa Korn
Wall Street Journal
May 23, 2018
The U.S. Education Department has opened investigations into whether scholarships and professional networking groups intended to support women at Yale University and the University of Southern California violate federal law by discriminating against men.
...
The government dismissed parts of Mr. Pekgoz’s complaints, including concerns about Yale Women in Business and USC’s Gender Studies Program and its Center for Feminist Research, after finding that they don’t exclude or discriminate against men. But it will investigate Yale’s Women Faculty Forum, Yale Women Innovators and five other groups or programs at that school. It is also looking into USC scholarships and fellowships that are advertised as being open only to females, and a Women in Science and Engineering group that excludes males.
But it will investigate Yale’s Women Faculty Forum, Yale Women Innovators and five other groups or programs at that school. It is also looking into USC scholarships and fellowships that are advertised as being open only to females, and a Women in Science and Engineering group that excludes males.
...
Sanctions against USC or Yale are far from certain, and the Education Department’s investigation could yield no findings of discrimination. But Mr. Pekgoz said he is hopeful about his proposal to phase out what he called “affirmative action for women.”
“I think the current administration promotes a fairer approach that takes into account the interests of all students,” Mr. Pekgoz said.
Mark Perry, an economics and finance professor at the University of Michigan-Flint and a scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, has filed similar complaints with school officials at his university and at Michigan State University.
“There was this huge double standard,” said Dr. Perry, a faculty affiliate at Flint’s Women’s and Gender Studies Program. Women are “still treated like they’re underrepresented, like they’re weak and victims and need all this support.”
In 2016, Dr. Perry filed a state civil rights complaint against Michigan State, alleging the school discriminated by offering a women-only study lounge. Michigan State opened the space to all students that summer. And starting this year, the Flint campus agreed to open to all faculty five awards that previously were available only to women or to minorities.
Dr. Perry said he is still awaiting response to his inquiries about roughly a dozen other University of Michigan initiatives, including graduate fellowships and scholarships and a program for freshmen women interested in computer science.
